Programa Oficial de Postgrado en Historia
Departament de Humanidades
Departamento
Institut Universitari d’Història
’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives
Máster
ster en Historia del Mundo
SYLLABUS
Subject title: Contemporary Europe facing Globalisation since 1945
Subject code: 31839
Subject type:
Mandatory
x
Optional
ECTS: 5
Teaching language: English
Instructor (academic year 2014 - 2015): Jean Monnet History Professor Fernando Guirao
Summary:
The ‘Europe’ of today could be understood as the culmination of a set of sophisticated
mechanisms of co-operation
operation and integration that have attempted to respond collectively to
the most important challenge that the West has had to face in politicopolitico-economic terms in the
last 70 years: national governance in a global environment. The course is divided in three
parts. The first analyses the impact of World War II and the period of post-war
post
reconstruction
(1944-51)
51) from an international as well as eastern and western European perspectives;
perspe
the
second part focuses on understanding the nature and causes of the European golden age
(1951-68)
68) from an economic, political and social perspectives; and the third part deals with
the problems of the current ‘European model’—built
model
around the European
opean Union—which
Union
is,
in essence, the failed adaptation to the exhaustion of the ‘reconstruction model’ (1969-2014).
(1969
General and specific competencies
General:
•
•
To increase the ability to gather and analyse in a critical manner historical sources
To enhance the ability to read and discuss academic texts in English
Specific:
•
disciplinary approaches (economics, political science, and history)
To enhance trans-disciplinary
1
Programa Oficial de Postgrado en Historia
Departament de Humanidades
Departamento
Institut Universitari d’Història
’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives
Máster
ster en Historia del Mundo
•
•
•
•
To analyse in great detail policy formation and policy implementation
To enhance the long-te
term perspective in historical analysis
To enhance the reading of the present using historical methodology
To learn about the reasons of policy disparity within Europe
General themes:
1. How to define ‘globalization
globalization’ by 1945? The Bretton Woods System
2. Great diversity in post-war
war reconstructions in Europe
3. ‘National reconstructions’ vs. ‘globalization’: The Marshall Plan
4. ‘The German problem’: the Europeanisation of the Federal Republic of Germany (I) – the
European Coal and Steel Community
5. ‘The German
erman problem’: the Europeanisation of the Federal Republic of Germany (II) – the
European Economic Community
6. The engines and nature of the ‘golden age’ in Western Europe
7. The engines and nature of the ‘golden age’ in Eastern Europe
8. ‘The German problem’:
blem’: the Germanisation of Western Europe (I) – the European
Monetary System
9. ‘The German problem’: the Germanisation of Western Europe (II) – the European
Monetary Union
going EU crises with historians’ analytical tools
10. Reading the on-going
11. Contemporary
ary Europe facing Globalisation since 1945:
1945: What have we learned?
Teaching methodology:
‘Globalisation’ is one of the most commonly used concepts by authors, journalists and
commentators as of today.
today. The way this concept is defined is crucial because the definition
will condition how the audience perceives the nature of this phenomenon, the balance
between benefits/damages, and the capacity to resist or mould it. A very frequent approach to
‘globalisation’
ation’ presents it as an unavoidable process which no nation would be able to resist
and thus,, as a consequence, all nations should converge towards a single, uniformed, straitstrait
jacket socio-economic
economic model in which politics would matter little if anything at
a all. This
course will confront students with the contrast between facts and interpretations
interpretation so that they
can reach their own opinion. Understanding increasing inter-dependence
inter dependence—a more neutral
way of describing ‘globalisation’—requires
‘globalisation’
understanding the economic
onomic logic of events.
Political historians’ traditional uneasiness with economics has limited
limit
their scope to
understand a great deal of contemporary policy action. By the same token, economists should
come to understand in turn that without considering the
he logic of political systems and the
demands of the constituencies providing their main support,
support no policy action is fruitful in the
long term. Long-term
term trends matter and condition political options (by
(
altering the
opportunity costs involved) but the essence
ssence of democratic politics is the opportunity to
escape deterministic traps. Co-operation and integration among the European nations have
widened their
ir scope of action.
action
2
Programa Oficial de Postgrado en Historia
Departament de Humanidades
Departamento
Institut Universitari d’Història
’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives
Máster
ster en Historia del Mundo
Class sessions will combine the instructor’s lectures and student discussion of the assigned
readings’ contents.
Grading:
50% of the grading will derive from the quality of the student participation in class
discussion; the other 50% from a final written essay.
Bibliography:
Arendt, Hannah, Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954:
1930
Formation, Exile, and
Totalitarianism,, New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1994 (“Approaches
Approaches to the ‘German
Problem’”—published
published in 1945—and “The
The Aftermath of Nazi Rule: Report from
Germany”—published in 1950) (for session 4)
Eichengreen, Barry,
• “Institutions and economic growth: Europe after 1945”, in Nicholas Crafts and Gianni
Toniolo, Economic growth in Europe since 1945,
1945, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1996, pp. 38-72
72 (session 2)
• The European Economy since 1945. Coordinated capitalism and
and beyond,
beyond Princeton and
Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2007 (chapters 4 and 6) (sessions
sessions 6 and 7)
Gardner, Richard N., Sterling-Dollar
Sterling
Diplomacy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956 (for session
1)
Guirao, Fernando and Frances M.B. Lynch, “Reading Contemporary European History. A
Milwardian Perspective”,, introduction to F. Guirao and F.M.B. Lynch (eds.), Reading
Contemporary European History,
History, London and New York, Routledge (forthcoming) (session
10)
Keynes, John M., The Economic Consequences of the Peace,
Peace, Volume II of The Collected
Writings of John Maynard Keynes,
Keynes, London, Macmillan/Cambridge University Press, 1971
(session 4)
Judt, Tony, Postwar.. A history of Europe since 1945,
1945, London and New York, Penguin
(session 7).
Maier, Charles S.
• “The
The Politics of Productivity: Foundations of American International Economic Policy
after World War II”, International Organization,
Organization Vol. 31/4,, September 1977, pp. 607–634
(session 2)
3
Programa Oficial de Postgrado en Historia
Departament de Humanidades
Departamento
Institut Universitari d’Història
’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives
Máster
ster en Historia del Mundo
• “The
he Two Postwar Eras and the Conditions for Stability in Twentieth Century Europe”,
Europe
American Historical Review,
Review Vol. 86/2, April 1981, pp. 327–352 (session 2)
Milward, Alan S.
• “Was
Was the Marshall Plan Necessary?”,
Necessary? Diplomatic History,, vol. 13, no.
n 2 (Spring 1989),
pp. 231-253
253 (session 3)
• “The Schuman Plan”, chapter 12 of his The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945-51,
1945
London, Methuen, 1984 (chapter 4)
• “The Marshall Plan and German Foreign Trade”, chapter 10 of Charles S. Maier and
Günter Bischof (eds.), The Marshall Plan and Germany, Oxford and New York, Berg,
1991, pp. 452-487
487 (chapter 5)
• “Politics
Politics and Purposes in Fifty Years of European Integration”,
Integration”, Journal of European
Integration History,, Vol. 20, 1/2004, pp. 43-48
43
(chapter 10)
• “Governance
Governance in a Global Environment”,
Environment Journal of European Integration
Integratio History, Vol.
20, 1/2004, pp. 49-51 (chapter 10)
4